Fresh Milled Flour Tortillas

2 cups soft white wheat berries This is the BERRIES, not the flour amount. You will mill all 2 cups of wheat berries into a fine flour (2.5 cups used to make dough)

1.5 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/3 cup tallow/butter/lard

1/2 cup sourdough discard (optional)

1 cup hot water

Mill 2 cups of wheat berries into a typical fine flour.

In a large bowl, combine 2 1/2 cups of freshly milled soft white wheat flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix together.

Add to flour mixture 1/3 cup of tallow. Using a fork, a pastry cutter, your hands, etc, cut in the tallow until it resembles a coarse meal type flour.

Once tallow is incorporated, SLOWLY add a bit of hot water to flour mixture until dough starts to hold together and pulls away from the bowl. You may need more or less than 1 cup of hot water, all depends on the wheat you are using. *Note: the sourdough discard will replace some of the water, if using. 

Once dough is holding together, it will look rough. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and start to knead by hand until dough becomes smooth. This will take about 3-5 minutes.

Divide dough into 10 balls. Roll balls until smooth and place on a place. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rest for AT LEAST 30 minutes (see notes below).

Once dough has rested, heat a comal, frying pan, etc to a high heat on your stove top.

Lightly dust your work surface with flour, and roll out a ball of dough into a very thin circle. This will take practice! Make sure dough isn't sticking to rolling pin or your work surface. Dust flour as needed.

You know tortilla is ready to be cooked when it has been rolled out thin and isn't tearing. Once tortilla is rolled out, place in hot pan.

Wait about 15-20 seconds until you start seeing air bubbles in tortilla. Then flip tortilla over and cook for about another 15-20 seconds (see notes below).

Once cooked, place in a towel lined basket and cover to keep tortilla warm. This will also soften up the tortilla even more!

Continue to roll out and cook the rest of the tortillas. 

Notes:

You can allow your dough balls to rest even longer than 30 minutes. I find the longer they rest, the more soft they are! I have rested my dough balls up to 2 hours before with no issues. You can also rest in the fridge until you're ready to cook. Just make sure you allow dough balls to come to room temperature before rolling out and cooking. 

If your dough balls keep tearing when rolling the out, allow the dough balls to rest longer covered with plastic wrap. 

If your tortillas are getting too many dark spot while cooking too soon, turn down your heat. 

Note about storing:

You can make in advance. Wait until tortillas completely cool down and store in a plastic ziploc bag and place in fridge. When ready to use, heat up a frying pan as above and heat each tortilla until warm. If tortillas appear too dry, sprinkle lightly with some water before reheating.